More Road Traffic Means Wheeling To Frustration

The problem is most severe at rush hour: bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Lehigh Valley's most heavily traveled roadways.

Twice a day Routes 22, 222, 512 and 100, Airport and MacArthur roads and Cedar Crest Boulevard become highways from hell for area motorists.

Traffic congestion is the top transportation complaint in public opinion polls conducted of motorists by the Joint Planning Commission of Lehigh-Northampton Counties, said Joseph L. Gurinko, chief planner for the JPC.

But the Lehigh Valley continues to drive more.

"Unless people change their ways, it's only going to get worse," Gurinko said.

Traffic volume on area roadways is expected to increase 2 to 3 percent annually, said Gurinko. And vehicle miles traveled are far exceeding vehicle registrations, he said.

"Due to the increase in women in the workplace and smaller households, people don't combine trips," said Gurinko. "People are traveling more."

Population in the Lehigh Valley increased 8.1 percent from 1980 to 1990, Gurinko said, while the number of households grew about 12 percent. During that same period there was a 20 percent increase in passenger car registration, he said.

But growing traffic volume is just one reason for gridlock. The shift in population from the cities to the suburbs has created different commuting patterns on roads not built to handle so much traffic.

"There's less congestion in the center cities and much more in the suburbs," said Gurinko. "The central business districts have lost a fair amount of employment to the suburbs, so there are different commuting patterns."

It's not uncommon to see a virtually empty LANTA bus moving through a gridlock of cars on MacArthur Road at rush hour. But getting people to leave their cars at home and use the bus or car pool is difficult, local transportation officials admit.

"Changing attitudes is a difficult thing," said Armando Greco, executive director of the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority. "The automobile in our society is king. It's going to take a long time."

The new federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, which sets the country's transportation policy and funding, will help with that, Greco said.

"There's a clear emphasis on building transportation facilities that move people, not single occupant cars," said Greco. "It's very much a different direction than we've had in the past 30 years."

That new direction is also evident at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, whose safety and mobility program is studying practical, inexpensive ways to improve safety and traffic flow on some of the state's busiest highways instead of building new roads.

Car pooling, construction of park and ride lots and improvements to mass transit systems are also being studied, Myers said.

Some businesses are promoting mass transit and ride sharing to improve traffic flow in congested areas.

Air Products and Chemicals Inc., located along busy Route 222, staggers work shifts, pays to have a LANTA bus serve its Trexlertown headquarters and promotes car pooling, said John Brody, manager of general services.

Staggered hours help cut the number of cars on the road during rush hour. Brody said it works.

Busing and car pooling are less than successful.

"For some reason the people of the Lehigh Valley don't want to ride the bus," he said. "There is ride sharing and car pooling, but it's not overwhelming."

Plans to improve some of the Lehigh Valley's most congested roads are under way. A bypass around Wescosville and Trexlertown is among the options being studied to ease traffic on Route 222.

Local and state officials are planning to widen Airport Road, Schoenersville Road and Race Street to four lanes. And improvements to Route 512 are expected to begin sometime this year.

But relief from congestion won't come as fast as people would like. Highway planning has always been a lengthy process, and it's getting more complicated.

In addition to the exhaustively detailed environmental studies required to make sure projects aren't destroying wetlands, protected wildlife or historical objects, planners will have to contend with the new federal Clean Air Act.

They will have to show that highway or mass transit projects will not harm a region's air quality, said Gurinko. Vehicles are the biggest cause of poor air quality in urban areas.

Lehigh Valley motorists may one day use high technology to avoid congested roads. Gurinko said researchers are developing computer maps for cars that would show drivers the best routes to use to avoid congestion.

Sensors on highways would allow transportation officials to charge motorists for using heavily-traveled roads, Gurinko said.

"Motorists would have an account with a transportation authority and if you run over a strip you are billed," he said. "If you use roads at the most congested times, you pay more."

And message boards along highways would tell motorists the fastest routes, Gurinko said.

In addition to private research into these technologies, Congress recently allocated $660 million for their research and development.

"We're at a point that I think the American people and our resources are not going to permit us to build our way out of congestion and traffic growth problems foreseen in the future," said Greco. "It means either people are going to have to be satisfied we're going to have more congestion, or consider alternative ways to get to and from where we're going."